


Even Faeries

by versigny



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Byun Baekhyun is Bad at Feelings, Changelings, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Identity Issues, Magical Accidents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 10:17:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17744042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/versigny/pseuds/versigny
Summary: "I like everyone. Even faeries."





	Even Faeries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [timelapse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/timelapse/gifts).



_I like everyone. Even faeries.  
_

* * *

 

Torrential rain was pounding against your poor window, it was freezing outside, and it absolutely was not going to stop you from teasing your best friend.

“You’re late,” you deadpanned without looking up from your textbook as your dormitory door opened.

“Really? I’m late?”

“Yup. Four minutes.”

Baekhyun was soaked, and shivering as he peeled off his cloak to hang up on the rack. But he was smiling wryly anyway. You probably should have taken that as a bad sign.

“I cannot apologize enough for my below-average behavior, though I am flattered you were counting. Let me make it up to you?”

The distance from the door to your bed was negligible, and he moved so fast you didn’t have time to react. His body was suddenly engulfing yours on the bed, arms tight around you in a miserably cold, wet hug that left you shrieking for mercy.

“Oh my god. Oh my god! Get off me! Fuck you!”

“You’re so warm! How unfair is that?!” he whined against your neck. “Ahhhh, warmth… Body heat… My own personal furnace…”

It really didn’t matter how much you complained and groused and tried to punch your small fists futilely against his chest. He was a human icicle, and you were trapped.

You stopped struggling, eventually, somewhere between freezing drops of water dripping down the back of your shirt from his bangs and your toes going numb. Between breathing in and catching his scent underneath all the chill and your heart rate settling to a lightning pace.

It wasn’t so bad, but it still wouldn’t do to be stuck on your bed like this. However, he had obviously gotten comfy and was not going to sacrifice that any time soon.

“You feel so nice,” he purred, and you felt the little heat you had left go to your cheeks.

“Sure,” you sighed, and closed your eyes. If anyone walked in, this would look awful on so many levels, but it wasn’t  _actually_ like that — it was just Baekhyun.

His hands clung just a little bit tighter to your shirt, and his nose nuzzled a fraction more against the crook of your neck. You squirmed as he sighed contentedly, and fell asleep not thinking about how nice this was at all.

—

“Why didn’t you get one of the rings?”

It no longer scared you half to death when Baekhyun appeared out of thin air and fell into perfect step beside you. It made you wonder if he might have been half-vampire or something else somewhere down his family tree, but his aura was too clean and he smelled too human. He was just strange.

“Can’t wear metal, remember?” you smile thinly. You didn’t like lying, or thinking about all the things you kept from him. But he was bad at reading lies, and didn’t question it.

“It’s so high-quality, though! Look.”

Holding out his hand, he proudly displayed the shiny silvery-gold ring that looped around his pinky with old magick words engraved into it. He had been looking forward to it for months. The rings were very, very rarely awarded from the Literature club; it was the highest honor to receive one, and only went to the best and brightest of the best and brightest. Needless to say when you declined, your seniors were — after recovering from their shock — none too happy.

You tried and tried and tried not to think about it. How much you had wanted that ring. How hard you had worked for one. You resorted to crying in the shower at night when nobody could hear you.

“You look sad.”

You almost trip. Your shoulders stiffened, and you absently pulled your backpack higher on your shoulders, clutched the straps a little tighter, and faked a smile.

“It’s really pretty,” you try to gloss over it with, but he still frowned.

“So what’s been bothering you?”

Baekhyun smoothly stepped in front of you, long legs giving him an advantage. It was late, and you were the only ones on the empty path in front of the residential buildings, but it wasn’t dark enough to hide the worry that caught up with you.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you answer evenly, trying to step past him and failing.

“Hey. Talk to me.” It only took an outstretched arm and grip on your shoulder to stop you. His words were gentle and sharp as a tack, and they threatened to pierce the paper-thin dam you had built up.

“What is there to talk about?” Your voice was  _miraculously_ level. But your knees were starting to shake, begging to take off running back to your room and hide in the shower, but then his suspicions would really be valid, and you’d never be able to escape, and—

“I wish you’d tell me. You don’t have to, but… I trust you, and I always go to you when I feel, like… weird. Maybe I rely on you too much—”

“You don’t,” you interrupted sharply, and Baekhyun just half-smiled back, tucking a loose curl back behind your ear.

( _Don’t go to you, or rely on you too much?_ )

“…You don’t have to tell me,” he repeated. “But I like when you talk. Even if you have to hit me to do it, I’d understand.”

It was pointless holding it in. Heat pooled at the rim of your eyes and he looked at you for a long time until you broke and said weakly, “But I don’t want to hit you.”

In true Baekhyun fashion, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he immediately curled you into his chest in a bone-breaking hug, lips flush against your crown. It was always as if he was surrounding you entirely with warmth and security and daydreams. It was always so unfair that he could do this to you. It made you angry sometimes that you had met him. Baekhyun was only supposed to be a sweet human boy who did so many things wrong they turned out right; someone to pass the time with until you had to go Home. Nothing more. Nothing less.

It had been a grave misjudgment on your part.

You sniffled into his shirt, shaking silently as he held you. You couldn’t keep this up much longer. Every moment you got closer to him was another degree of pain and betrayal he would feel when you had to go.

When he found out you weren’t the real you.

That last thought nearly made you buckle, and scared you so much it filled you with hate.

—

“Did you hear? The Magistrate’s meeting with the Faerie Queen next week.”

You swallow your tea wrong immediately, sputtering as Baekhyun pats your back with a furrowed brow.

“Sorry,” you choke. “What?”

“The Faerie Queen? It’s Midsummer, so they’re going to try and have that treaty again? Are you with me?”

“Oh,” you say dumbly. “Right.”

Midsummer was always a nightmare. Your emotions tuned in and reached a peak, making you energetic and full of good spirits and ideas, but also quicker to lose your temper and fall victim to temptation. It scared you that the Folk loomed, able to spirit you away at their choosing, and you tried to hide indoors as much as possible until the Solstice was over.

“Faeries sure are strange.”

The tea that had almost touched your lips again did not spill this time.

“Why hide? We know so much about them, it’s all in the books. And since the last Crusade we’ve worked out the affairs with the harpies and trolls and remaining vampire covens that were still holed up in the mountains. It’s only the Unseelie that are persecuted by now, and it’s only because they’re — you know, the fuckin’  _Un_ seelie, so I just don’t see why the Seelie wouldn’t want the support of the rest of burgeoning society. Doesn’t it make them look like  _they’re_ hiding something, too?”

Idly, Baekhyun makes little wisps of light glitter over his fingertips. Lips pursing, you swat his shoulder.

“You’re supposed to be studying,” you remind him, and he rolls his eyes. “And you know faerie history is so much more complicated than that.”

“Yeah, but I still don’t get it.” He petulantly swirled little lights in a miniature cyclone. You couldn’t help but watch — he was one of the few who came into the college with raw magical talent and intelligence. You’d seen him burn holes through bricks with a teaspoon-sized superdense ball of light, and watched him emulate a colony of fireflies in the woods. He didn’t think his elementalism was that amazing compared to what others had, but then again, he also forgot how to give himself credit for anything half the time.

When you glance up at, you find him staring straight back at you.

“W-what?”

His eyes were reflecting the light and turning them a shade of dark honey, and he hadn’t blinked yet. You were more than a little self-conscious at this point, and felt your ears start to burn.

Then he smiled vaguely, and looked back at his distraction. “Nothing.”

Baekhyun left his textbook open, quill forgotten on his parchment as he leans back against the wall. Your bed creaks under the shift of his weight, and you accept that nothing else productive is going to get done today.

“You’re a horrible influence,” you sigh, settling back to admire his magick instead. He seemed to inflate at your words as if they were a compliment.

The sun setting hit your window and turned your room a scarlet-orange; the little dust specks appeared in the harsh new light. His glimmers dimmed in it.

Baekhyun decided the affront should be taken as a personal challenge.

The air thrummed from his concentration. His long fingers outstretched and then tightened into fists a few times, warming them up to begin.

The dust specks freeze in midair. Then, slowly, they merge together in an opaque mass, before expanding in a wave. The beam that came through the window and hit your wooden floor and wall in a bent rectangle lost all semblance of its shape, instead also gliding out and filling up the rest of the open space instead.

The whole room glows.

His palm cups and makes a swaying motion, and in turn the light makes one large revolution before creeping down to the floor, leaving darkness in its wake as it condenses again. It moved in ethereal patterns that nothing tangible could ever have managed, and Baekhyun lazily wound his fingers in conduction.

You couldn’t move. You were so caught up that you could barely breathe.

The gauzy light trails up the leg of your bed like a spirit and you flinch as it approaches your knees, but Baekhyun mutters, “Stay still. I won’t hurt you.” and so you bite your lip and don’t move.

It follows the lines of your bones and covers your calves at first, stretching out just enough to blanket you as it keeps going upwards. Little wisps curl and envelope your arms, hands, knuckles, fingers. They wrap around your throat sweetly, and, nestle into your hair like crushed diamonds and powdered sugar. It’s pleasantly warm and soothing, and made you wonder when he’d learned to control the heat so precisely. Your heart swelled up at how proud you were, left you completely taken aback as to how much you  _loved_ —

“I like,” he begins very quietly, “the way light hits your skin.”

Your lips part silently, and you can’t make his features out because the room is still dark. Your heart races wildly in your chest.

“You’re so pearly.”

Flustered to the point of paralysis, it takes you a few seconds to blink and focus on what he’s talking about, but when you look down you see it clearly now — your skin carries a faint sheen of pastels on it, like a diluted rainbow, and your heart skips a beat because he thinks it’s pretty — thinks  _you’re_ pretty — but a quiet voice in your head goes  _“only Fae flesh does that in the light”_  and your esophagus closes up and panic bubbles rapidly in your stomach. Automatic, your hands jump to try and cover it up, wipe away the traitorous illumination, but of course it doesn’t work, it’s light, and it’s  _his_ light, and… and…

And Baekhyun laughs in a way that makes your insides twist, and his hands take yours, stopping you from trying to hide from him like you always do.

The ring on his pinky presses onto your last two knuckles. The metal is cool, then so cold it is molten. A single bolt of thousand-degree lightning shoots up your tendons, veins, flesh, and hardens. Nothing has ever compared to this pain in the world, so powerful that you don’t even hear the scream tearing from your throat.

You’re blinded for a long moment, leaving you with nothing but the excruciating pain coursing through you. When you regain awareness, everything is in strange colors but the light has gone back to normal, and Baekhyun looks more afraid than he’s ever looked in his life.

“_____?” his voice cracks. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

You see him go to cup your face but whimper and jerk back like a cornered animal, trying to get your lungs to work properly after going into shock.

“N-no,” you rasp. “Ring. No.”

Baekhyun looks from you to his ring and then back again with more confusion. You know he’s not stupid. He’s going to figure it out.

“You said you were just allergic,” he pleads, desperately trying to understand. “Why did it do this?”

“I don’t  _know_ ,” you sobbed, and it was the truth. Clutching your tortured hand for dear life, you tried to shut down the sensation in it. “Just… keep it away.”

Everything is disjointed after that; you cried a lot, initially from the aftershocks, but later on from fear of him inevitably wising up. He tried, multiple times, to force you to go to the Healers, but you vehemently refused, going as far as struggling away from him to make him stop.

The sun goes down.

He disappeared and reappeared with a bittersweet potion that eased your suffering a few notches, dulling it around the edges, and gingerly helped to arrange your pillows so that you laid in the direct moonlight. It was something you were  _never_ supposed to do ordinarily — moonsickness was a real thing and there was a variety of conditions and ailments that were all caused by sleeping in such a manner, not limited to lycanthropy — but it did have its own beneficial healing properties and workings to be utilized as well.

The pain settled to a simmer. It felt like flour had permeated all your organs and your mouth. You calmed down, only relapsing once when he tried to move a clump of hair from your face and you balked at the sight of his pinky. But, he quickly apologized and showed you both of his hands: perfectly ringless, perfectly harmless.

He smoothed back your hair, and then stroked it for an hour. He listened to your breathing. When he felt his anxiety start to crescendo, he would crane down and place his lips to your temple, your scalp, your brow, without a second thought to ease his own frazzled heart.

Had nobody told him that it wasn’t okay to act like this? Maybe. But maybe it was also all he knew.

Baekhyun was not good with words. He did not talk about his feelings with you, come to think of it, and he rarely said anything clearly. But as he kissed your hair for the tenth time, lingering there, hovering over your protectively, you realized that this was because he only knew how to talk by touching.

Every single instance of his frustration or stress or excitement or melancholy was all expressed through intimate contact. Every meaningful conversation he had was through skin.

You shouldn’t do this anymore.

“Baekhyunnie,” you whispered so softly you didn’t think even the shadows could hear it, “I’m sorry.”

He remained where he was, but his eyes opened and he gazed hard into your curls.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

You had never heard his voice so dark. It made you want to scream at him and apologize over and over until he left you alone like he should have to begin with… but you didn’t. Selfish for the last time, you bit your lip and clung to the sheets, trying to muster up your courage.

He shifts before you can form a sentence.

With no warning, his arm wound under your neck and the other around your waist, chin rested on your head. He was well-practiced in holding you, unfortunately, and feeling your bodies fitting perfectly to each other’s forms. Baekhyun didn’t think a thing of it. He seemed to think that you’d lost the right to personal space when it came to him, too.

You didn’t question the fact that he had known what you wanted at that very moment. You didn’t think about anything at all. You only laid there, listening to his very human heartbeat, letting its sound break yours and mend it back together again.

—

It’s been a week since you last saw him.

The process of keeping things that way has been a living nightmare.

It started with, for the first time in years, locking your door. There hadn’t been any reason to after Baekhyun; he showed up at unreasonable times with no warning, and it wasn’t like anyone else ever came to bother you anyway. When you heard his body crash into it for the first time, though, you’d had to clamp your hands over your ears and recite the Alchemical Laws in your head to block out the sound of him desperately trying to turn the knob.

He was on the other side, probably freaking out, but conflicted over causing a scene in the hall. And you wished he’d go, but hoped he’d stay.

He comes back later. This time, you had to hold the lock still in your good hand with your weight pressed to it to make sure it didn’t turn. You couldn’t make out anything he said, but you thought you heard a faint  _“why?”_  before he gave up again.

Going to class required planning now, too. Comparing your schedules, there were two periods where he would be able to wait outside your classroom and corner you. You carefully bought time by sending in sick letters to those professors — you were a good student, so there wasn’t any issue — and attended your other classes normally. When you didn’t have class or a life-threatening need to get sustenance, you remained in your dorm. A large jar of Witch’s Zest did the trick.

On the fourth day, your good luck kicked in. You had just woken up, and saw lights seeping out from under your door and leaving your room. Cold dread filled you, and with shaking hands you resorted to the only thing you could.

Left hand out of commission, you scrambled to the door and began using your right to trace the outline of your finger along your doorframe, watching a faint, glittery film be left in its wake as it invisibly sealed the gap. It had been so long since you did this, and you were afraid that you were out of practice, but the lights seemed to have stop. So instead you waited tensely for any of the school’s magical alarms to go off, signifying the presence of illegal foreign magic, but the spell was so mild it just didn’t register.

When you withdrew, your room was markedly darker.

Your hand ached badly.

Glancing down, you looked at your greying appendage in silence. The place where the ring touched you was a raw, sickly red, and little veins of poison ran from it across the back of your hand. It had started encroaching on your wrist, and anywhere the web went it hurt, and your skin lost any of its color. The red mark was just beginning to blacken around the edges.

You didn’t want to think about it killing you.

—

On the sixth day, you sent a letter to Literature club stating your apologies and withdrawal.

—

The Solstice is coming.

The Fair Folk, as it were, live in the Unseen Realm. It is not a different dimension; simply the same place looked at in different ways, and much of it hidden. Faeries are  _exceptional_ at hiding and not being found. Much of their charmwork revolves around this — Locking spells, Sealing spells, Invisibility spells, enchanting objects as illusions to distract, little jinxes to tie knots in shoelaces or let the candle set your hair on fire.

Much of their realm is separated by a Veil, placed and maintained by them, with the Solstice being when it was at both its strongest and weakest; peace talks always came up then. Centuries of persecution fueled by ignorance and fear has left nearly the whole Fae population against any sort of channel of open trade or communication between themselves and the humans, though the human’s fear was not entirely unfounded. The Unseelie had, notoriously, been responsible for an unforgiving number of deaths, illnesses, plagues, and wild misfortune. The Seelie had been responsible for the smallest fraction of it. Negligible.

It is difficult for humans to tell the difference between the two.

The last major conflict was the event of Changelings.

As it was, and has always been, faeries do on occasion switch their own offspring with a human’s newborn. There are multitudes of reasons why, some kinder than others, and none of them the faerie child’s fault, but this doesn’t bring comfort to the families who have lost their child. Changelings are unceremoniously detained, stripped down, investigated for dark magic or designs, and then left at the doorstep of the Unseen Realm to be picked up if the Fae so choose. Naturally, in the period before detainment, Changelings are universally spited, hated, and tormented by the locals who learn of the unfortunate soul’s true nature.

The previous decades still saw this happening, and society had finally reached a point of putting its foot down. Firm limitations and requests were bartered for, and Changeling incidents reached an all-time low.

But even the widest net has holes, and even though many infants were exchanged back to their blood, some slip through the cracks.

The Solstice is coming, your hand is almost entirely petrified and useless, and you can’t keep food down. Metal poisoning has never been this bad, and it makes you wonder if they’ll even take you back when they see what you’ve brought upon yourself.

A lifetime of lies for the smile of a human.

—

Friday, you determine, is going to be the last day you ever go to class. This leaves you enough time to pack and steal away under the cover of night and make it to a patch of Veil. You carefully wrapped up your hand in bandages and jot down some pseudo-healing inscriptions on it, letting people just use their imagination. A cauldron accident. A spell gone wrong. A run in with enchanted cutlery.

You’re so sick to your stomach and you look like the absolute definition of hell, but the last of the Witch’s Zest pulls through and you manage to make it to Early Incantations of Midplane Witches on time. The professor smiles at you warmly, rosy cheeks, missing teeth and all, and you hold your jaw in a pleasant smile so the tears can’t well up and ruin everything.

Blessedly, no one made a single dangerous comment about your injury. The amount of well-wishes you received from classmates and strangers alike were unprecedented, however, and each one made your resolve crumble more and more and more and…

You never, ever, ever wanted to leave this place. You loved going to your classes, even if studying took over your life and your sleep schedule turned slightly demonic. You loved writing angry essays and reading tomes and learning and getting closer to becoming the person you wanted to be.

Every single memory you had of these things were permeated with Baekhyun.

He had been in your first Enchantment Prose class, and sat beside you. He was already chatting with the people in front and behind him, making them laugh with his ridiculous stories and captivating smile. You had scrunched your nose and turned to your journal, telling yourself he would shut up when the lesson started. If he didn’t, you’d just switch seats next class.

Then you felt fingers on your arm and gasped.

“Hey, I’m Baekhyun. It’s very nice to meet you. Who’re you?”

You gaped at him like an idiot, wide-eyed, and he just kept his steady gaze and palpitation-inducing smile on you that widened slowly the longer you sat there. Eventually you withdrew, certain that he was just messing with you. Asshole. Who would do that out of boredom?

You glanced at him, and he was still looking at you, waiting for an answer.

“_____,” you found yourself saying despite yourself, and not even unkindly. You were weak. Peeking sidelong, you saw his head tilt as he examined you like you were doing something incredibly strange.

“_____,” he tried out your name on his tongue. “_____. Do you have any raw magick?”

Your heart nearly regurgitated itself out of your throat and you froze. Did he know? How could he know? No, of course not. It was an innocent question. With much effort, you attempted to wipe the nervousness from your face as you pretended to busy yourself on the blank journal pages and say, “No.”

You didn’t have human magicks, at least. It was only half a lie.

“I hope I can keep up with you. You must be the type to study a lot and think too much, but that’s good in my garbage opinion! What’s your major?”

Did he really just say that? Really? What the fuck?

“Uh, I think I’m going to go into Literary Spellography,” you answered quietly still, secretly glancing at the door and wondering where the hell the professor was.

“Spell Lit is impressive! You look like the writing type. I think it’s the hair.” Without asking, his fingers ghosted over your attempt at a kempt mess of hair and you sat straighter at your desk. You should have felt uncomfortable, violated even, but you couldn’t when you were so distracted by the sensation that your chest had been filled with hummingbirds and ambrosia.

“Thanks?” You squeaked, red-faced.

He hummed a low note.

“Am I bothering you?”

Finally, completely, you turned and really… really looked at him. Baekhyun had been born with a cruel expression — it was so open and inviting and he looked at you like you were the moon and stars and heavens. His smile was mischievous and sweet. His fingers drummed against his desk as he waited for your answer, but he wasn’t smiling. His eyes were not mirthful. Some profound concern echoed in the lines of his face.

“W-what? No,” you said, taken aback, suddenly wanting to apologize for being so unfriendly. “ _No_. You’re not bothering me. Don’t worry.”

His eyes got impossibly bigger, and then like the flick of a switch he was smirking and settling back in his chair, pleased as pie.

You were startled by something wet on your face, and blinked, and reached up to feel tears dripping off your cheeks.

“Oh,” you said to yourself. That was embarrassing. You needed to suck it up and get back before—

“You’re kidding me, aren’t you?”

His hands grip your arms tightly enough to instill submission, but not enough to hurt. He wasn’t going to let you look at him. Instead, he nudged you forward and you tripped, unprepared, and you were helpless as he ushered you forward. Baekhyun moved at one brisk pace, never letting up or slowing down.

You felt like you were going to throw up. You weren’t ready for any of this, none of this had been part of your meticulous plans. Your throat was dry but you tried to protest.

“Baekhyun? Wait, I—”

“Don’t!” he said cheerfully. “Don’t you  _dare_.”

Cold terror and guilt shot through you. You bit your lip, eyes scanning the grounds desperately for a way to escape, or turn invisible, or turn back time or anything, anything at all. Terror wracks your body, and you feel your breathing creeping towards hyperventilation. The same things keep repeating in your head, over and over… He wasn’t supposed to find out… The picture of his disappointment and revulsion, the way he’ll be eager to abandon you as soon as he can…

“Baekhyun, please, let me go,” you croaked out. He only laughed. It wasn’t funny.

Just as you dreaded, you end up at your building — which you unlock because what else are you going to do at this point — and he promptly steers you down to the stairs, up to your hall, and down it until you reach your door.

This was the hard part. This was the bad part.

Your insides settled into stone. Shutting your eyes, you withered and leaned forward until your forehead pressed against the wood.

“I can’t,” you mumble. “I can’t do it.”

“But you can. I really don’t want to break your door.”

Desperate, you accuse, “Shouldn’t you be in class?”

“And wouldn’t that make this easy for you? You know we can’t have that.” Faintly, you feel his thumbs rub the back of your arms, and the gesture is unexpectedly intimate. Your heart misses a beat and little tingles run up your skin; he still didn’t know how to say what he meant.

“I don’t know how to open your door anymore,” he adds, voice dropping so low you almost couldn’t hear him. He admitted this like it was defeat; like he had lost something incredibly precious.

At that, your hand trembles violently, but you trace your fingertips against and around the grain supporting the knob until there was a muffled sound of pressure releasing. Your chest felt like it had been numbed and turned to solid mortar. What was there to say now, anyway? Nothing, that’s what. Nothing at all. You just had to be strong enough to live through the next two days and then you could begin the process of violently detaching from the only life you’d ever known.

Baekhyun opens the door, and forces both of you inside. When it clicks shut behind him, he lets you go with a reluctant slowness, like he couldn’t decide if he really wanted to.

“Don’t disappear,” he demands, his voice almost cracking. You can feel his glare burning through you.

“I can’t,” you sigh.

“But you tried to,” he counters. “And you were  _this close_  to succeeding. And now I’m scared to ever leave your room again, because if I do I know you’ll never see me again, and worse, I will never know what I did wrong to you. You’ll be gone forever, like I just made you up to make me happy.”

Swallowing thickly and still staring a hole into the floorboards, you mumble out, “I could say the same.”

“ _Bullshit!_ ”

He was suddenly right there in front of you, towering over you and trembling violently like he had a fever. Even if he’s on the verge of exploding, when you peer up at him and see his face for the first time in a week, you only see a heartbreaking vulnerability and profound guilt that you’ve never seen before. As if Baekhyun truly believed with all his heart that this was all his fault somehow.

And then his eyes start shining, and he looks scared. Your stomach turns inside out. You had never seen him cry before. He was about to cry, and it was going to be all your fault.

“I don’t know how to talk to you properly,” he grits out, furious at himself and holding back the tears. “I can’t say anything right.”

“No!” You blurt back instantly. “You say everything right! You don’t have to always spell everything out—!”

“Then how do I tell you not to  _leave me_.”

Everything went silent. You weren’t even sure either of you were breathing. But then, you feel his hand tentatively reach for yours, and his fingers wrap around your own so featherlightly you aren’t even sure they’re there.

He never touched you with such reserve. You tightly clasp his hand in yours until your knuckles are white, and the air decompresses at his relief. The static of his tumultuous aura calmed.

“Why won’t you go to a Healer?” he asks, openly scared now. Like a child who can’t understand.

You take a small breath to steady yourself, and look below his shoulders instead of his eyes.

“It would be… so bad if I did.” You almost laugh at the understatement. “I can’t tell you how bad it would be.”

“Try anyway. I know you’re good with your words.”

“You’ll hate me.”

This wasn’t an opinion; this was a fact. All of your life had been leading up to this fated point. Admitting your identity was akin to a death wish, or the suicide of your normal, everyday life. Everything would be forcibly taken from you and never returned. And it would sting to lose some of your possessions, yes, but in the end it all boiled down to the single microcosm that would contain the truth dawning on Baekhyun’s face — the face of the person you loved so much you couldn’t bear it — and how it would permanently ruin his happiness towards you.

There was, obviously, no future with him. There was no future with your hard-earned Certificate and a little house full of parchment and grimoires and channeling artefacts and amplificators.

“That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said,” he said flatly.

Bristling, you shot back, “You have no idea what I’m going to tell you!”

“What?” he snaps. “That you do have magick? That you’re sick? That you’re in trouble? That you’ve been keeping secrets from me because you don’t know how to share your burdens? What am I good for, then?! Hurting you?!”

“No! Baekhyun, you have to listen to me, this is nothing like that!”

“Then why won’t you just  _tell_ me so I can understand!”

With your bandaged arm you covered your eyes, damming the tears that flowed freely and hiding your miserable expression from him. You didn’t want to see his face when you said it. You just wanted to hide. You say it all in one breath before the sobbing takes over.

“Baekhyun, I’m a Changeling. I am a Changeling and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’ve lied. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. I’ve never told anyone. I couldn’t ever tell anyone. I don’t want to go away, I want to stay here and keep being me and pretend none of this is happening. I’m sorry.”

An immeasurable amount of time passes between you crying into your arm and his hand disentangling from yours. Fair enough; he’d get up and leave, and that would give you just enough time to grab your bag and run with what you had.

Baekhyun doesn’t get up, and the door doesn’t open.

Like he had done a thousand times before, he wraps his arms around your frame, bundling you into himself so tightly it felt like you were one person stuck together. He’s stiff and shaky as he holds you, lacing his fingers into your messy hair, his warm cheek drifting against your temple as he exhales slowly and unsteadily.

“Ah,” he sighs, and then whispers, “You’re so  _warm_.”

“I d-don’t understand,” you stammer. “I don’t get it. I don’t…”

His words didn’t make sense. Panicking, you tried to draw back, but he wouldn’t let you.

“Just a sec,” he grumbles against your ear. “I haven’t hugged you in ages. Or been able to sleep… or spell words correctly… or eat. I didn’t know it would be this bad, but I think I shouldn’t have been surprised.”

For some reason, he must not have understood you. But you know that’s not true. You know he heard you right. He’s just… choosing to ignore it.

And that’s it. You told him the secret that has hung at your neck like a guillotine your whole life, and the world didn’t end. The weight that lifted off of you was so profound that you thought you might throw up, so you remedied this by burying your face into his shoulder in defeat.

Sniffling, you wept back, “I’ve only been gone a week.”

“That’s forever in Baekhyun years. You should know better.”

He finally extricates himself from you. As he does, his hands glide down your arms to your bandages, and set to work unwrapping it.

“Oh gods,” you groaned. “You don’t want to see it. It’s bad. I… I don’t know why it’s this bad.”

The grey starts appearing at your wrist bone, and you wince at it. Baekhyun seems totally unfazed by the sight of it, though, the only reaction he has being his brow knitting in concentration. He pulls the wrappings away painstakingly, with the utmost care, to make sure he doesn’t hurt you.

“It was the metal, right?” he asks as if you were discussing the weather.

“I mean, yes, it was the ring. But metals haven’t ever done… this much.”

He pauses and the calm is missing from his expression.

“I don’t like that. What?”

You grimace and admit, “It’s never been this bad before. Ever. Metal poisoning hurts, but it doesn’t persist, especially if it something I only grazed. And it…  _never_ hurts as much as the ring did on contact.”

“Ah. Okay.”

Baekhyun finishes unraveling, folding the bandages and placing them beside him. The blackening flesh is revealed in all its vile glory. The exposed wound was even more harsh now, and looked infected — something that only dark magick would do.

Like a curse would do.

“Oh,” you say dumbly. “The ring.”

Baekhyun blinks. “What?”

“The ring. It’s the ring. It’s enchanted.”

His head tilted, brow furrowed, but then his mouth turns into an O and his gaze goes sharp and hard. He had a peculiar way of showing aggravation, and it you felt guilty for letting any of this happen to begin with. But you needed to ignore that for now, and make sure you didn’t die, and make sure he didn’t do anything rash.

“How could I have forgotten that?” He presses his palms into his eyes and groans. “Fuck. I hate forgetting things. Why do I keep doing this. Of course it’s enchanted, it’s the high honors ring, of  _course_ they enchant it…”

“It’s, um, probably a malicious ward,” you go on, idly examining the charred, raw gash on your knuckles. “To protect from… you know. Threats. The not-human-enough kind. Since faeries aren’t…”

Your voice trails off, the rest of your sentence unspoken. Even though he knows what you are, a lifetime of censorship doesn’t go away instantly, and you can’t bring yourself to say more.

Baekhyun looks up at you, pure fire in his eyes. You flinch back, prepared to backpedal, but his nostrils flared and he spoke before you could.

“You aren’t malicious. You shouldn’t ever call yourself that.”

The command hung in the air for a heartbeat before you half-hid your face behind your hand, happy in a way that almost hurt.

“Thanks, Baekhyunnie.”

“Welcome,” he says absently, already preoccupied with delicately taking your cursed hand in his and frowning at it as he analyzes it. “I… think we can reverse a lot of this. The bad part is the center. Can you still move your fingers?”

You hadn’t tried to move them, since it felt like the bones in your hand had been crushed by a boulder, but you grit your teeth and give them an experimental wiggle.

It takes all your strength not to cry out at the blade-sharp bolt that goes up your arm.

“That’s it,” you manage to get out. Baekhyun doesn’t seem pleased.

“That’s not much.” Not that you were surprised. “On the bright side they do move a little but, but they’re freezing cold and stiff. I don’t want them to be petrified. I don’t know what to do about that. Maybe if we can figure out what the actual mechanics of the curse are… Gods, and I can’t even ask the club, can I?” He gave a mirthless laugh at the end.

“I don’t suppose anyone else on campus would have accidentally run into a dangerous being and then decided to save them?” You offer half-jokingly.

“Nope. I somehow doubt that. But I’m glad you’re being cute with me again.”

His head is ducked down, but you could see him smirking and give him a light kick.

“As much as I’d like to defeat you in physical combat right now, I need to figure out how to save you first,” he says, now peering at the tiny scribbled lines that spread across the grey.

“I… I was thinking I might just… have to…  _go_ ,” you finally say, lamely. It felt like lead had filled your lungs, and Baekhyun visibly stiffened.

“…We’ll figure something out.”

There wasn’t a lot of confidence in his voice.

And then, in typical Baekhyun fashion, when he looks up, he has his smoothest and most charming smile on, and his fingertips glide up your arms to leave the tiny hairs standing in their wake all the way until they scoop around your neck. When his thumbs brush your jaw, he hums, and you had never felt more afraid and in love in your life.

“Don’t worry yet,” he says, and he means it. With blood and fire. Forever supplementing his promises with touches that promise too much.

—

Over the next two hours, Baekhyun came and left your room more times than you could count. It was like he was making up for all the time he missed when you had been cowering away. A wild assortment of magical menagerie was carried into your room, many items you didn’t know he owned (let alone were legal to), until he unceremoniously dropped his last stack of texts onto the floor and hunkered down.

“Alright,” he says. “I thought of a few different things we can try. I don’t trust my brewing capabilities and I don’t think we have enough ingredients, but I do have a small vial of circle-grade antiserum that wouldn’t hurt.”

“Circle-grade?!” Your jaw hung. “How did you get your hands on that?”

“Not important! Knock it back so we can start reading. You. You’re going to start reading. I’m going to start arranging crystals and maybe maybe  _maybe_ something alchemical if you’ll let me ruin your flooring.”

“Yeah, no, and what crystals?”

He doesn’t answer, just procures a tiny glass vial a brilliant shade of clear lavender, placing it in front of you with a cheerful, “Drink up!” before pulling an impressive assortment of gorgeous stones from his pockets.

If only to distract yourself from the way he whispered very old words to himself in a way that was somehow captivating to listen to, you drink the liquid that leaves a cold bitterness down your throat with an aftertaste of spring water, then grab the first book you see.

It almost felt normal. You go through tome after tome in this manner, digesting a semester’s worth of information on curseworking and breaking and identification while Baekhyun moves around you in his own little world. If you relaxed just right, you could pretend this was a study session.

“This wouldn’t be such a bad way to die,” you muse, turning a page. “Reading a book while you ruin my room.”

“Say that again. Really. Say that again.”

The threat in his pleasant voice was clear, and you smiled privately as your heart fumbled and went back to your reading.

A large and intricate formation of crystals had been laid around you, like an alchemy circle of beadwork, and Baekhyun was putting the final touches on the shape itself. Once he adds a last point to the polygon, curving its meeting lines up, he tip-toes back and admires his handiwork.

“Okay,” he nods. “I feel good about this. I don’t ever want to see crystals again after today, and we should obliterate these when we’re through and maybe sell the powder to the fraternity—”

“Baekhyun.”

“_____. See, I, too, can say your name in a stern voice. Keep this up and I’ll have to ask you to start calling me daddy.”

It was only the lightning speed of his hand clamping down on your head that kept you from lunging and causing him bodily harm, and ruining the crystal formation he had painstakingly arranged. Baekhyun’s laughter fills the room, and you find it hard to be angry at him as usual.

“Sit down, and give me that.” He snatches the book from your hands before you could even try to surrender it. “Thank you. Now sit. Legs crossed, hands resting on your knees, close your eyes. Try not to look so unhappy.”

You obey, but peek open an eye at his last request. “Really? I’ve never heard of a spell that required expression control.”

“Oh, it doesn’t. I just don’t like it. Close your eyes.”

You do, and begrudgingly smile.

The pronounced thrumming that entered the air again signaled magick channeling, and you wished you could watch Baekhyun do his work. The air begins tingling against your skin and heating up sharply in the way fire licks as opposed to a humid, hot summer’s day.

“Breathe normally,” Baekhyun says softly. “It’s just magick. It’s not going to hurt you. I won’t hurt you.”

The heat suddenly cools with such speed that it makes a thick chill rush down your spine. You swallow, and trying to stay untense, mind clear—

“There’s over 400,000 crystals that exist that we know of,” he starts saying, the temperature around you still fluctuating as currents appear in the atmosphere along with it. “And all of them are pretty, and all of them reflect light differently. That’s my favorite thing about them. I can’t make it rain and I can’t shoot fireballs or cover the ocean in ice. But sometimes, if I try really hard, I can change colors. You didn’t know that, did you? We’re even now.”

Pressure starts to accumulate in your afflicted hand. Not that it hurts, but it makes you more aware and curious as to what he was doing. Crystals could absorb and diminish and amplify, depending on the stone in question and the time of day and proximity to other elements. From what you had eyed, nearly everything he had used had been from the first two categories, presumably to reduce the curse’s essence, but your major had only properly acquainted you with amplifiers, so you didn’t have a concrete idea as to what he was trying to accomplish.

Of course if he did it wrong he could end up damaging the fabric of your soul, leave you permanently comatose, or disable you in some manner. But you trusted him. And even if he failed, your earlier sentiment still held true.

It’s hard to be afraid when Baekhyun speaks, and right now his voice sounds like music without even trying.

“Colors are perceived by the eye, and the eye needs light to see colors. I can’t explain it in a way that makes sense, but when I move light, it’s a matter of making it bend in an infinite direction. There’s always a little bit lost to refraction, but the times I clamp down on it, like I’m squeezing it tight in the palm of my hand but my hand is still open, it can bend inside of itself and suddenly there are colors and it almost feels like I understand. I don’t know anything else that compares to seeing something that makes a thousand different strands of light that ends so perfectly you can’t tell where it ends or begins.”

Something like a vacuum begins tightening on your hand, and Baekhyun orders you to breathe.

It started to hurt. You squeeze your eyes shut tighter, trying to lose yourself back in the flood of his words and forget where you were and what was happening to you.

“So. When we’ve gotten all this unpleasant shit out of your hand, I’m going to show you all the colors your skin can turn. Take a deep breath, this will probably hurt a moment.”

It did. The pressure went from painful to air-tight instantly like sharp needles were uniformly penetrating the entire expanse of your hand. The pin-pricks went deep, deep, deeper, until it felt like they were shooting through the thin bones and meeting in the marrow before exiting on the other side. Unable to hold it back anymore, you buckled forward with a long whine, trying not to move your hand from the spot it was in as you gurgled and whimpered through the deep mutilation.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, just stay there, I’m trying to go as fast as I can!”

The urgency in his apology is soothing and saddening, and groaning once again you decide you can’t take it anymore and open your eyes.

It was hard to adjust to the scene. The room is pitch black except for your hand — your poor, mangled, undeserving hand. It was a raw pink, glowing from the inside out. Blood was trying to come to the surface in hundreds of tiny pinpoints, and the glow pulsated, moving inside of your flesh, and it was so sickening your throat nearly buckled with your gag reflex.

But the red seal remained, bright and vicious as ever.

Wide-eyed, you move past the stabbing sensation and ask thinly, hoarsely, “What’s the light doing?”

The pain doubles for half a moment and you nearly faint.

“Fuck, sorry! I told you not to open your eyes. I’m trying to eat the dark up with it, I need to… c-concentrate… Close your eyes, sugarbee, I’m almost done. I can feel it absorbing.”

With an expression of pure anxiety as he glances back and forth from your hand to your face, you try to apologize with your eyes before you shut them again and are swallowed in blackness.

True to his word, the agony subsides, leaving a hollow numbness where it once was. Static heightens in the air again, and your hair floated around you like a messy halo as Baekhyun spoke once more. This time, his voice sounded weak, fragile, and you wondered for the first time how much it took out of him to bend the light.

“You can’t talk while I do this part, alright?” You hear him smiling, trying to keep you comfortable even when you can’t see it. “Pretty please?”

“Okaaay,” you give a small smile back. If you didn’t feel like your lungs were on the verge of collapsing, you would’ve screamed at him for doing this to himself, maybe. Baekhyun always pushed himself too hard when he needed to the least. He was an idiot. He was so stupid. He was a fool.

“Breaking the rules already,” he joke-sighs. “Here we go, missy.”

He was your most precious thing.

Baekhyun inhales, and then speaks with the clarity of a bell. The words that spill from his lips range from heavy bronze to gold leaf in their intonation, and the old language strummed in the air like a giant harp, unseen.

And, as you listen, you realized that this was the fifth illegal thing he’s done in three hours, and you start you cry silently.

You knew what he was saying perfectly. Not even a single note of it was lost on you. This was your speciality, after all — Spellography, art of words and weaving. Spellcasting required impeccable control of one’s voice, ears trained to discern the slightest changes, and sometimes a very long memory.

Baekhyun was splicing together purifications. Some drew the poison away from the outside, and some repelled it from within. Some bottled it and some carried it. You watched as a formless thing that should not have existed clouded around your broken hand, polluted darklight, and the crystals surrounding you began to tremble against the wooden floor in rebellion or preparation, you did not know. You clamp your eyes shut again.

The most important thing about purifications is the subject of them, you recall absently. The subject, above all, must be addressed clearly, or the intent would simply dissipate into the open air.

And you listen as he speaks.

 _five holes, driven in and out of my beloved,_  
_four doors, open and open again, my beloved’s hearth saved_  
_three moons and three suns to carry beloved where it goes_  
_two channels, to inhale in god’s wind and decrease the devil’s strain_  
_once more, once more_  
_one beloved of mine_  
_once more, once more_  
_one beloved of mine_

_if i have known dark, then so dark it goes_  
_if i have known dark, then the dark it knows_  
_due beloved’s teeth, due beloved’s bones_  
_my beloved’s heart, my beloved’s unknown_  
_and beloved is clean, my beloved’s unknown_  
_once more, again, the dark could not know_

_light beloved lightly limit littlenone, lit little lightly lips and lum, light littles lightly, light lives-loves, light limits lightly, lit love limitsnone_

_dither dither darkly, dim down done, dark dithers darkly, dampen dark dumb, dim dark down dark down dark done, dark dithers darkly, beloved’s dark dones_

_ten crescents and apologies of a frail heart inside_  
_nine waxes unwaver and lightly unhide_  
_eight oils, for beloved to taste and decline_  
_seven white dreams for beloved to align_  
_six rivers flow to a bright nothingness_  
_five holes, driven in and out of my beloved,_  
_four doors, open and open again, my beloved’s hearth saved_  
_three moons and three suns to carry beloved where it goes_  
_two channels, to inhale in god’s wind and decrease the devil’s strain_  
_once more, once more_  
_one beloved of mine_  
_once more, once more_  
_one beloved of mine_

There were eighteen different titular nouns available for a caster to leverage when addressing their subject: welcomed stranger, hated stranger, neutral stranger; person of high respect, hated person of high respect; neighbor; neutral friend, welcomed friend; sibling, parent, parent-family, sibling-family; welcomed close-to-death, neutral close-to-death; inanimate object; esteemed creature, neutral creature.

Dearly beloved.

_once more, once more_

The crystals’ rattling peak in a frenzy that sounds like hailstones on a frozen lake top, before halting abruptly.

_for beloved_

When the immense burden feels like it’s left your body, you gasp for air, not realizing how heavy you had become or when it happened or that you had even been holding your breath at all.

_of mine._

“_____?”

You open your eyes, and it’s just another Friday summer afternoon in your room again.

The used crystals don’t reflect at all in the sunlight, creating a jarring picture strewn around you.

Mind spinning, you looked at your hand. It was bright pink in a sticky way, like a few layers of skin had been taken off, but there was no grey and no poison veins. Just tender. It was grotesque and your stomach lurched. Then you saw it — the print of the ring, standing proudly unharmed.

Unwilling to acknowledge it, you look at Baekhyun instead, mage of the century as far as you’re concerned. His whole face is rosy to his ears and he’s damp and shiny with sweat, panting, staring back at you unsurely.

“How is it?” he rasps.

You can’t answer him. You just stare, opening and closing your mouth at a loss for words, reeling from everything that had just happened to you. You could only hear the sound of your heart pounding uncontrollably in your ears, and the imprinted echoes of  _beloved_ in your head.  _No, Baekhyun, the curse isn’t broken. Yes, Baekhyun, you did somehow manage to successfully reverse it to its base state. No, Baekhyun, I have no clue where to go from here. Yes, Baekhyun, I am sorry for every single thing wrong I have ever done to you._

Your bottom lip trembles and gives you away.

Instantly, Baekhyun sunk to his knees, curling into a tight ball on the ground with his fists in his hair. He’s quiet, until you hear some very foul things.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” you warble, not knowing what else to say as you quickly wipe a few stray tears, the dam threatening to break again. “Baekhyun, can I move?”

“Yes,” he almost wept into the ground, muffled. “Don’t touch the crystals.”

Gingerly, you get to your feet and maneuver through the circle like needlework until you were free.

“Baekhyun?” You kneel down beside him, tentatively reaching out your good hand to rest on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

He laughs mirthlessly from his hiding place. You frown.

“You were amazing,” you say quietly. “Completely stupidly amazing.”

“I fucked up,” he replies, voice cracking, “I might have done Dimlight’s Dally wrong. I’m sure I did.”

“You did it perfectly,” you urge, creeping towards being overwhelmed. Seeing him like this was worse than anything — your proud, clever, confident Baekhyun reduced to the fetal position and on the verge of tears. Again. You couldn’t handle it, especially when it was your fault. Choked up, you added, “Your voice was so beautiful, it was like listening to a song, a-and you enunciated perfectly, and it was the most beautiful spellcasting I have ever heard in my life. It was all you. You didn’t miss a single word, okay? You did perfectly. They should promote you to Warlock class for that alone. It’s okay if you didn’t break it. I’m not mad, I don’t care about any of that, I just… need… you to be okay… please. Please?”

“I didn’t break it,” he says flatly, still tearing at his scalp. “I don’t know what else to do. That was everything I knew.”

“I don’t care! It doesn’t matter. Why aren’t you  _listening_ to me?”

“Because now I’m never going to see you again! The faeries will have to take you away to heal you and the Council will have to break the curse themselves and every day, for the rest of my life, I will have to remember that I did this and it is all my fault and I couldn’t break it. And now I’m going to lose you forever.”

Baekhyun jerks to his knees, inches from your face and chest heaving. And then, like a candle-snuffer, you watch the light go out of his eyes.

“Sorry.”

You couldn’t take it anymore.

“Shut up!” you snapped. “Shut up, shut up, shut up! For once in your life shut up and listen to me! I’m not letting them take me away! Even if they do, I’ll… I’ll just come back! Okay? This isn’t your fault.”

Without thinking, Baekhyun leans forward and rests his forehead on your shoulder, and goes still like you had at the door. You were too muddled to try and comfort him, more concerned with what you were actually going to do next and how to stop him from doing anything else foolish.

“I wish I’d never gotten the ring to begin with,” he spoke bitterly into your neck, making you stiffen at the warmth of his breath on your skin.

“Don’t say that,” you sigh. Baekhyun deserved that ring more than anyone. That ring had been proof of his success, and he worshiped it, cherished it.

Abruptly, he shot up, mouth open but silent, like all his words had died in his throat. Gulping, you fast-tracked your plans to stop him from whatever he was doing ( _trip him, faerie lock the door, jump on his back…_ ) but then he was grinning and pulling you to your feet with him.

“The ring,” he says like he had solved the infinite form of magick. “It’s the ring.”

Wasn’t that what you had just said to begin with? You both knew it was the ring, and for a moment, you became distressed at the thought that he had actually harmed his own memory in the purification process.

Before you could even think of a response, his lips are brushing against yours in the sweetest, most fleeting kiss, and then he’s darting across the room. He expertly avoided the crystals with what should have been impossible ease, and he dove into his bag, wrenching around in it until he made a victorious noise and held his hand up in the air.

The golden ring gleamed lovely in the light, and you dully remembered just how much you had wanted yours.

“The ring,” Baekhyun sings again as he moves to the center of the room. “The ring, the ring, the ring. Ahhhhh, _____, I’m a genius, and you’re brilliant, and I don’t want this to set your room on fire.”

Baekhyun’s hands hovered over the stones with his eyes narrowed and fingers wiggling. He flitted over them before making a happy noise and plucking a large block of something that was half-clear like flawless glass, half-cloudy white. He places the ring on the floor in front of him, hunching in front of it with his arms raising above his head, and suddenly you understand.

“Baekhyun,  _no!_ ”

He freezes mid-swing, and looks up at you.

“What?” he asks.

You couldn’t believe it. You couldn’t believe this was happening, and that he was doing this, and you were about to watch him do it.

“No,” you say again, voice strangled. “But… But that’s your ring. You can’t do that.”

“Why not?” He was genuinely lost. He genuinely could not fathom why you were so distressed.

“That’s… your honors ring! You waited so long for it? You worked… so hard for that ring? And you can’t just break it? I, I c-can’t, I can’t let you break it, not for me—”

“_____.”

Very slowly, like a cat, his lips curl up in the darkest smile you had seen out of him yet. His eyes, clear and deep, pinned you to the spot, dried up your throat, made your stomach twist in a way that was horrible and so, so,  _so_ good, and…

“For once in your life, shut up.”

And he brings down the stone with a  _crack_ so loud your window shatters clean to pieces.

—

“I’m glad your skin grew back. And that I burned your Lit Club resignation letter before anyone else saw it.”

“You know, me too? Honestly?”

“Lit was so lonely without you. And I can hold your hand on either side now, see?”

“D-don’t spin me, there are people around…!”

“I don’t care! You’re so pretty. I’m glad I’m allowed to hold your hand.”

“I… Me… too.”

“Wait, I want to get the door for you.”

“My hands aren’t fucking paralyzed, you know—”

“If you tried to get the door, then you would have to bend my arm funny or let go of my hand, so I took the better option.”

“Why are you so ridiculous? Oh, hi Krystal— You’re lucky I don’t like making scenes. I’m getting this door.”

The door clicked shut behind you, and you unceremoniously dropped your things onto the floor with a sigh of blissful relief.

Just as quickly as it started, it was over, and Baekhyun had grabbed you and lifted you off the ground to pull into his arms.

He didn’t say a word. For a while, he just stood there, holding you like you were a lifeline, and pressing muddled kisses up the line of your jaw and across your cheeks, always straying close your lips without ever quite making it. You could only swallow and try to contain your racing heart, hoping he couldn’t feel it.

Then, he dropped you onto your bed, and crawled over you. Within a second his hands drifted across your arms, leaving tingles and hair standing on end, and then looped around you. He was a seasoned veteran at being the big spoon, and once he was satisfied with how snug you were against him, his fingertips ran lightly along the curve of your neck and then back down the column of your throat.

He opened his mouth, as if to speak, and then shut it. Instead, he draped his knee over your and hugged you even more tightly, making sure there couldn’t be any less space between you.

It was obvious that he wanted to take a nap, and that seemed like a very good idea to you. Sinking into the firm, warm body holding yours, you breathed in his fragrance and felt the bubbling rush of pleasure and security that always came with it.

“You feel nice,” you whispered. It was easier saying that now.

Baekhyun hum-laughed into your hair, fingers drumming on your perfectly smooth knuckles. He doesn’t say a word.

The lights in the room go out.

* * *

“You  _like_ me? Are you sure?”

“Of course I do. I like everyone. Even faeries.”

**Author's Note:**

> WHEW LADS so back in 2015 (!!!) when I wanted to start writing reader-inserts again I whipped this up for my friend that Will Die Stanning Byun Baekhyun, which is amazingly valid. So it's older and not quite my usual gamut but IT'S REALLY DEAR TO MY HEART AND I HOPE YOU ENJOYED.
> 
> Also, this was entirely inspired by the time years ago when Baekhyun was on the internet and he replied to some EXO-L asking if he would like her if he met her or something along those lines, and he said, "I like everyone. Even fairies." My ass was obliterated! Have a wonderful day, thank you for reading this.


End file.
